Friday, June 10, 2005

In my youth I spent a week in the city of San Francisco, just missing by a few months (!#&**!!!) the Summer of Love. I stayed with a friend on the campus of San Francisco State College, soon to become one of the most visible examples of 1960's college campus unrest. It was like going to the circus. I knew I didn't quite belong with the performers; but I knew that somewhere under that tent was a place for me.

Somewhere on Ashbury street I bought a comic book called The New Adventures of Jesus, one of the first "underground comix," although I didn't know it at the time. I still have it, somewhere. The author, Frank Stack as Foolbert Sturgeon, has Jesus say at one point when confronting a mob of dim-bulb Galileans that, "The problem isn't sin, it's stupidity." For some reason that phrase has stuck with me since.

When I was younger I thought these small fish to fry; I was after bigger game. Besides, although not in much official favor today, at one time the Seven Deadly (aka Capital or Cardinal) Sins were closely associated with the medieval Catholic Church, an institution I did not admire. In addition, they seemed so.... familiar, so....American.

Recently I have come to reassess my position. Large things from small things grow. Maybe looking at our lives and the choices we make through the lens of these sins is not a bad idea. It would also be tempting to begin a critique of the last 60 years of American life - including our foreign policy - from within their framework. But this is a blog post, not a dissertation.

So I invite you gentle readers, who are likely as free from these sins as I, to consider along with me the many ways we all might benefit if others would just get grip on their seven deadly sinfulness.

About Me

I'm a Virginian, but more Roundhead than Cavalier. In the digital world I have been a Mac person since '85. A former redhead, I have been a migrant knowledge worker in both the public and private sectors. Along the way I have picked up a couple of master's degrees, neither of which relate directly to the work I have taken on since retiring - historical researcher and writer. I am the father of a redheaded daughter who taught French to middle school youngsters and now is turning the wheels of justice in a Charlotte law office, and husband of a college professor who teaches composition, primarily to first-year's. Granddaughter Lily Rayne arrived on Groundhogs Day, 2010. We have a dog named Jane and a cat, Hokie. My fantasy football team is the WMD's. A Myers-Briggs INFP, I admire the renaissance man ideal, and its modern counterpart, the polytechnic man. Trying to approach these ideals seems natural to me. My daughter calls me Captain Tangent. I still miss my orange and white 1971 VW bus.